New Study Shows Our Friends Can Do No Wrong

BFF love 4eva!

I love my friends. I'd bail my BFFs out of jail or even drive them to Mexico before their weddings if they wanted to pull a Runaway Bride — no judgment.

However, this kind of loyalty makes me — and people in general — completely biased toward our friends. According to new research published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, unconditional love for your pals means that you may see their behavior in general through rose-colored glasses. Apparently, people just can't be objective when it comes to our friends — to the point that we tend to see them more positively than strangers would.

There are two parts to how we judge our friends, researchers found: First, we evaluate them based on how we feel toward them and we tend to attribute good qualities to people we like. Second, we over-perceive these good qualities in specific situations: For example, you may think your best pal is super charismatic, while a stranger might just see her as friendly.

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"In judging people we already know, we are more or less unable to ignore our previously established images of those people," said Daniel Leising of Technische Universität Dresden, who let the study. However, this tendency might be the "social glue" that keeps our friendships together, he noted. "In our evolutionary past, that [behavior] probably constituted a major advantage in terms of survival."

While you want your friends to be honest with you (especially when you're being an a-hole), I like the idea that my besties probably think I'm more awesome than I really am. Hey, that's what friends are for.